The setup of traffic connections for the air interface in a telecom system is traditionally handled by a specific node BSC for GSM, RNC for UMTS, and ASN-GW for an IEEE802.16/WiMAX network. The setup of a service is typically requested by a mobile station (MS) and signaled to an application server in the core network.
However in a loaded network, it may be difficult for the MS to get access to air interface resources even to request the setup of a service. In case the service is needed for emergency purposes, i.e. 911 there is a strong wish to be able to prioritize this request and minimize the latency for setup of such services.
The IEEE802.16 has support for different QoS, which can have different priority settings. However before a setup of a service is possible to make the MS must be authenticated and admitted to the network.
Also as IEEE 802.16 is an OFDMA based system where all air interface resources are shared between users a mobile station (MS) may encounter problems to be granted bandwidth to request the setup of a service if the air interface is fully utilized and as there today exist no possibility to differentiate different users during initial ranging or bandwidth request.